


The ghost of yesterday

by Ruta



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Feels, Domestic Fluff, F/M, The Six Thatchers Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 15:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9190289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: Life goes on, proceeds, as everything, all over again.Molly is accustomed to grief. It is an old dress that suits her and that no fashion will ever make obsolete.A grief like that, though, she had never felt before. Nothing has prepared her forthis.Not even burying her father - the blond giant with the thunderous laugh who made her whirl with the grace of a dragonfly and populates every childhood memories – she suffered something similar. Not even after. After, when it happened tohim, when she waited for hours, months, years in front of an empty grave, crushed by the remorse for the lie of which she was complicit.Why? For love. Love of what? Of a memory.





	

Life goes on, proceeds, as everything, all over again.

Molly is accustomed to grief. It is an old dress that suits her and that no fashion will ever make obsolete.

A grief like that, though, she had never felt before. Looking in the mirror it’s not guilt that grips her stomach, but a fury that drowns any pleasure in a sea of resentment. Nothing and no one, not even one of the hundreds autopsies performed in a teen-year career (women in the prime of age, mothers and daughters, wives and sisters torn from their loved ones ahead of time; boys and girls slaves of the frivolities of the trend, victims of their own insecurity and loneliness; children), violent deaths like thunder in the night, quiet as the whisper that induces sleep after a rude awakening.

Nothing has prepared her for _this_. Not even burying her father - the blond giant with the thunderous laugh who made her whirl with the grace of a dragonfly and populates every childhood memories – she suffered something similar. Not even after. After, when it happened to _him_ , when she waited for hours, months, years in front of an empty grave, crushed by the remorse for the lie of which she was complicit. _Why? For love. Love of what? Of a memory._

Now it is the same kind of devotion to tie her to - no more colorful and comfortable and all the many qualities that the mere presence of Mary was enough to add at – the house of Watson. She goes there every day, after work or between shifts. It is not easy, requires sacrifice and steadfastness and a resistant dedication to the fatigue that weighs right into her bones, but doing the right thing is never easy. Only on two other occasions, she recalls, broke her heart in this way, though.

* * *

The shadow that welcomes her is a stab in the chest.

The memory of the laughter and the warm light that flooded the living room on the day of Rosie’s christening, the contrast with the image of the current desolation, for a moment shakes her.

But Molly, thanks to her magnanimous attitude and empathy, is a strong woman, so she squares her aching shoulders in a soldier's posture and prepare herself to engage in what has become her battle since the funeral of Mary Watson.

When she enters the kitchen, the smell of burning which she had only had hints in the hall becomes overbearing. She rushes to turn off the gas and throws the blackened pot in the sink, then opens the windows. Probably John was going to sterilize the baby bottles or maybe he needed water for the powdered milk. Water is quickly evaporated, burning the bottom of the pot. That being the case, it is a miracle that Rosie has not yet started to cry, as evidenced by the baby monitor on the table, miraculously quiet.

_Rosie_.

Animated by a restlessness faceless, Molly runs upstairs.

The door of the bedroom of John and Mary bed is ajar, and a deathly silence portends that John has finally surrender to the sleep a bit of his anger and despair.

Rosie’s cradle is empty and her heart skips a beat. Then loses a second when from the chair opposite the window, solemn and flawless, Sherlock gets up, in his arms Rosie who blissfully is sucking milk from the bottle.

\- Sherlock, - she whispers and casts an involuntary glance at the hallway, hoping that Jon's sleep is deeper than that his past experience let suppose. - You shouldn’t be here. -

If John is a man destroyed by a loss that seems unbridgeable, the sadness she sees in the bottom of Sherlock's eyes, when they cross hers, doesn’t appears less inconsolable. He makes a nod of approval, totally absorbed by the baby that he holds against his chest. He looks at her with palpable affection and a vulnerable and fragile expression.

Molly would not want to, but she is supposed to, even if doing so is gnawing at her conscience (and at something else). She takes a step forward, then another and holds out her arms to catch Rosie. - If John wakes up... -

\- He will not, - he interrupts her, but his voice is not without a dose of kindness that at a different time - happier days, easiest situations – would surprise her.

Molly frowns before a thought illuminates her synapses, igniting her mind with possibilities and detailed assumptions. No matter how tired or distressed he could be, John would never forget to turn off the stove, he would never go to rest without bring the baby monitor with him. No matter how the loss of a love has made him vicious, the love for his daughter is the anchor that keeps him clinging to a semblance of normality. A daily life marked by tight schedules, but well distributed and calibrated per minute over a period of days that run in a symmetrical and monotonous dance. - You drugged him. -

Her accusation is not enough to discourage Sherlock.

\- A mild sleeping pill, - he replies, shrugging.

\- You had no right! – From the whisper that was, in the dead silence that surrounds the house, her voice sounds dry and stentorian. Fists clenched, arms at her sides and shining eyes, face worn by too many sleepless nights, Molly knows she is a pitiful sight.

Sherlock, unexpectedly, avoids to remark on. He doesn’t blink, in fact, and his gaze scans her like a caress, a soft note that she, troubled, would mistake for tenderness.

\- Three days. –

The moment dissolves into confusion.

\- What? –

\- Three days, - Sherlock repeats and he is again the picture of composure, while rests the empty bottle on the windowsill and begins to gently massage Rosie’s back with an efficiency that denotes a certain experience. - 72 hours 16 minutes 54 seconds. It’s the elapsed time. –

\- Elapsed since when? - Molly questions and the next instant she would like to bite her tongue at her own stupidity. She closes her eyes. Ever since, she asked. It's been three days since the funeral of Mary Watson, three days since the last time she managed to convince John to stand at least a couple of hours. _Already_ three days. _Only_ three days. God, how time flies and likewise as seems to pass slowly, stagnate, taking advantage of the vacuum and shadows to rot.

\- I come to check them every week. - The pleading in his voice, suddenly dim and broken, forces her to re-open her eyes suddenly. - I have to protect them. It is what she would have wanted. I owe her. –

_Oh, Sherlock._

Before she can help herself, Molly gets near to him. Carefully, gently, she brushes the hair from his forehead. He doesn’t look good, but who does on rainy days? New, deep wrinkles furrow his forehead, another proof of the extraordinary importance that Mary Watson had in his life. Who could deny it? It was obvious. The immediate complicity, the alchemy of two kindred minds, two turbulent spirits animated by the same tireless spark of curiosity, with mercurial intelligence, a struggling soul, an identical spirit of sacrifice. No matter what, while John Watson was the first to scratch the ice that had frozen his heart, it was another Watson to uncover completely the shell and now the last champion of this extraordinary family tightens between her tiny fingers his remains, brandishing them as a weapon placed to her own protection.

_They are all that is left_ , she seems to hear the anguish of this realization in the echo of the buzz that are his thoughts. _All that is left to me._ To which she could, would reply: _You have me. You may have me, if you wish_. Regardless, Molly has never been a woman of poetry, but of science.

\- It was not your fault, - she finds herself tell him, however, because that's what he really need, will always need, nothing else.

The expression of pure surprise for a moment returns to him the appearance of their first meeting: a young man intact, untied by human passions, not compromised by the feelings and the dense tangle of their intertwined.

_What have we done to you? How far we have push you and how far you will still push yourself, for us?_

Part of her almost regrets that version of him, proud and disdainful, but another part of her, old and selfish, would die a hundred times every day just to see the glimmer of affection shining in the smile that now he is raising to her in gratitude.

Molly draws a vibrant breath and forces herself to pull the hand that still lingered on his forehead. - We all miss her, you know. You are not the only ones to have lost her, even if it is hard to believe. – Suddenly her nose is itchy and her eyes are burning. Mary, her smile and her explosive personality, the biting joke, the heroic courage, she thinks with regret. Mary, always on the move, always busy. Mary, intense and beautiful as a painting by Van Gogh: bright colors, energetic brushstrokes and a serene, firm knowledge of the desperation that made it less utopian the wonder of the achieved happiness. - Just because you shared secrets... that doesn’t mean that she didn’t belong a little to the rest of us. It was your best friend, Sherlock, just because you were so similar, but it was also my friend and because we were so different. -

She took him off guard. Molly scratches her wrist, hoping he avoids to note how red and rimmed her eyes have to be. Vain hopes. After all he's Sherlock Holmes.

\- Molly ... –

\- You have to go. -

He collapses as though winter has hit him prematurely. - I guess you're right. -

Reluctantly, with a melting slowness that Molly, tactfully, pretends not to notice, he gives her Rosie. His hand doesn’t leave her little head until it didn’t find the comfortable curve of her shoulder. Rosie emits a gurgle and Sherlock caresses with his thumb the arch of her eyebrow, reciting as chemical elements of the periodic table tips for weaning.

A few seconds later, he is already out. A pat on the head, a light kiss on the temple, the child of their best friends in their midst and a hoarse whisper to the ear to thank her.

_I cannot understand why everyone thinks that you have no human emotions_ *.

This time, unlike the christening, the thought is tinged with bitterness. Not to him, but to the resentment of the man who, in his grief, is scorning that of those around him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm stuck in bed with a fever and practically I have the impression of having spent half of my holidays crying (prior to Rogue One and now for Sherlock). I had to free myself from the black hole and so I wrote this.   
> I hope that my English is not catastrophic as much as I fear (I'm Italian), that reading was enjoyable and that you will be kind enough to tell me what you think of it.  
> A hug, especially to those who are crying/wept all their tears for Mary.


End file.
